The European Channel Leadership Forum is a unique 2 day conference. It brings together leading CEOs from European VARS and MSPs to discuss pressing issues, technologies and developments facing the industry, and also to network with no agenda.

A survey conducted by CRN in June 2018 reveals why some resellers are embracing propositions with enthusiasm and driving customer migration, while others are resisting the increasingly intense pull of the cloud.

To grow, to remain relevant to the customers, and to remain profitable, IT channels (in all their forms) will have to master a number of business model transformations in the cloud and digital transformation era. Read more to learn about the key transformations that IT channels will need to address, in order to bring new capabilities to customers and be successful in the future.

when she told analysts that her five-year plan to revive HP's fortunes is on track.

In a brutal assessment of where HP sat this time last

year, Whitman admitted the vendor was carrying significant debt and that its sales teams and partners lacked the modern tools, IT infrastructure and support needed to sell effectively.

But HP has come back fighting, Whitman claimed, highlighting the $7bn in free cashflow it generated in the first three quarters of its fiscal year. Hurrah.

Fashion in IT

As arguably the IT market's most aspirational brand, Apple has always straddled the worlds of IT and fashion.

But the vendor appears to be taking its high-fashion tag a little literally after enlisting Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts to run its retail and online stores business.

Ahrendts is credited with turning Burberry into a globally recognised firm - as well as giving the luxury goods house's tech systems a 21st Century makeover. She joins Apple just months after the company recruited former Yves Saint Laurent boss Paul Deneve to run "special projects".

Rumours that Apple will be installing catwalks in all its stores and forcing staff to wear cravats were unconfirmed when CRN went to press.

Raspberry Pi

China and manufacturing are words which go hand in hand, so it is no surprise that UK firm Raspberry Pi first started manufacturing its devices there when it launched. But last year, the firm - which makes low-cost computers for school kids - saw the light and decided to return to Blighty to make its products.

The company announced last week that its factory move to the UK - to Pencoed in South Wales to be precise - was such a success, the Sony-owned plant had turned out its one millionth machine. Slowly but surely, it said that both its manufacturing partners upped sticks to God's country too, so all Pis made over the last few months have been 100 per cent British.

And what happened to the famed millionth Raspberry Pi, we hear you ask? Sony created a gold-plated case for the machine to call home, which will be displayed proudly at Pi Towers.

Bad times

Ed Miliband

If the Daily Mail attack on his late father wasn't enough, Ed Miliband has found himself on the wrong end of a tongue-lashing from leading UK datacentre providers over his plans to freeze energy prices.

According to Onyx boss Neil Stephenson, the Labour leader's policy could cripple a sector already facing a spare capacity crisis as more coal-fired power stations are closed.

"Our energy bills are already expensive and they are only going one way, and that's up," he complained, although he stopped short of accusing Miliband of hating his country.

Northamber

If Good Times, Bad Times were a bar, Northamber would have its own stool by now, such is the frequency of its appearances in the wrong half of this feature.

Things don't seem to be getting any better for the Chessington-based distributor either as it swung to an annual loss of £1.05m - compared with a tiny profit of £37,000 last time around, which was possible only courtesy of chairman David Phillips decision not to draw his full salary.

On the plus side, Northamber still claims to be debt free with net cash of £6.13m. But while it's never nice to see a firm with such a rich history struggling, it feels like the distributor has been posting sub-par results for longer than Bruce Forsyth's been on telly.

VMware partners

If VMware thought that whisking its partners off to Barcelona, showering them with freebies and drowning them in free booze was enough to keep them happy, it was mistaken.

At its VMworld event, the vendor found itself in defensive mode as it insisted that its vCloud hybrid service would not upset the apple cart in the channel. The service is being launched in the UK as an EMEA pilot in Q4, with a wider rollout in the middle of Q1 expected across the region.

The vendor assured partners that it's the only firm offering it via a two-tier channel and insisted partners would be brought on board to sell it. However, it had to concede there might be some "co-opetition" with its service provider partners. No, we don't know either.